I believe John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making mentions examples, or at least I can't imagine where else I would have read the assertion. As I recall Curran describing it, a couple of Christie's novels were serialized in the UK and the American editions published from the (shorter) serialized version, with some resultant damage to the overall characterization. Curran indicated that these American editions continue to descend from the serials.

I believe one of the books was The Moving Finger, though I can't recall the second. I picked up a UK edition of The Moving Finger last year, but haven't yet gotten to making a comparison with the US edition.

I would assume UK<->US edition changes beyond spelling are rare if only for editing cost reasons, but I found this story interesting and believable.

I believe John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making mentions examples, or at least I can't imagine where else I would have read the assertion. As I recall Curran describing it, a couple of Christie's novels were serialized in the UK and the American editions published from the (shorter) serialized version, with some resultant damage to the overall characterization. Curran indicated that these American editions continue to descend from the serials.

I believe one of the books was The Moving Finger, though I can't recall the second. I picked up a UK edition of The Moving Finger last year, but haven't yet gotten to making a comparison with the US edition.

I would assume UK<->US edition changes beyond spelling are rare if only for editing cost reasons, but I found this story interesting and believable.

One thing to consider is that until fairly recently, the US didn't recognize foreign copyright. Thus, one of the first editions of LOTR's in the US was not authorized. In such cases, I'm sure it's not unheard of for publishers to take all sorts of liberties with the original text. IMPO, the mere act of publishing an unauthorized edition shows that one doesn't exactly respect the author or text much.

Oh yes! The Complete Morgaine by CJ Cherryh, kindle edition, Sept 1st 2015. What an awesome birthday present for me! Only $10. Got the Complete, Complete Enchanter by de Camp and Pratt this week as well. A good week for backlist books. Zelazny is the only major author on my list that doesn't have his major books out in ebook (i.e. Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness and the Amber series), the rest on my list are a bit more obscure.

Oh yes! The Complete Morgaine by CJ Cherryh, kindle edition, Sept 1st 2015. What an awesome birthday present for me! Only $10. Got the Complete, Complete Enchanter by de Camp and Pratt this week as well. A good week for backlist books. Zelazny is the only major author on my list that doesn't have his major books out in ebook (i.e. Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness and the Amber series), the rest on my list are a bit more obscure.

Here's a deal you might like. The Complete Morgaine by C. J. Cherryh for $7.99 pre-order from Google Play. It's in ePub.

One thing to consider is that until fairly recently, the US didn't recognize foreign copyright.

Fairly recently being 1976.

Since the passage of the Mickey Mouse Copyright Bill, courts have extended protection back to 1909, if the following criteria are met:

First published outside of the United States;

First published in a language other than English;

There might be one or two other criteria, but those two are why Disney has to pay royalties for material that ostensibly was in the public domain, in the United States, when they started their project that led to the court case.

It's been a couple of years since I last checked, so it may be old news, but all of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books are now available for the Kindle in the US, complete with hyperlinked footnotes.